Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Long-term sea level rises may be greater than predicted

Cordis News: Sea levels may rise much further than long-term projections predict, even if today's carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are stabilised, says a new report published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.

…..The team created a continuous reconstruction of sea level fluctuations over the past 520,000 years and compared it with data on climate change and carbon dioxide levels from Antarctic ice cores. Their results suggest that sea levels may rise to a much higher level than the long-term projections found in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)...

The research reveals a systematic relationship between global temperature and CO2 concentration and sea level changes over the past five glacial cycles. If this relationship is projected onto today's CO2 levels, this would result in a 25-metre sea level rise. The figures are in line with data from the Middle Pliocene era, 3 million years to 3.5 million years ago, when CO2 levels were similar to today's levels.

'We emphasise that such equilibration of sea level would take several thousands of years. But one still has to worry about the large difference between the inferred high equilibrium sea level and the level where sea level actually stands today,' commented Professor Michael Kucera of the University of Tübingen and Dr Mark Siddall of the University of Bristol…..

Ocean wave shot by Jon Sullivan, who has released it from PD Photo.orginto the public domain

June 2009 – At the studios of Cleanskies TV, I was interviewed about the costs of climate change, and discussed adaptation efforts underway in the US and around the world.

May 2009 – I helped draft the scenarios for Rising Waters, a multistakeholder scenarios effort focused on climate change adaptation in the Hudson Valley. The final report is now completed and available here.

May 2008 – I reviewed two books on climate and energy in the New Leader magazine: James Gustave Speth's The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, plus Robert Bryce's Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence.

January 2008 – A very local paper covers a very global issue.... The Litchfield County Times in northwestern Connectictut ran an article in January 2008 about Carbon-Based.

Now available: Climate Change Adaptation in 2011

A selection of my writings from 2011, plus some of my posts, as well as links... all focusing on the risks of climate change